WSU had its second scrimmage of the spring today. Here's what I noticed:

-- In the last week or so Peyton Bender seems to have become a lot more comfortable in the offense. He always threw a pretty, accurate ball, but appeared to force it at times and didn't always make the correct read. But in the last few practices he's been identifying the open receiver quickly and making good, quick passes that go over the defenders and hit the receivers in stride.

He threw six touchdown passes during Saturday's scrimmage, the most impressive, in my opinion was a 22-yarder to Gabe Marks in which the defense rushed offside and Bender recognized that he had a free play, so he took the deep shot and lofted a high-arcing pass that fell directly in Marks' cradle. However, he showed that he's still got some work to do on the next play, locking on Robert Lewis and throwing a pass off his back foot. Marcellus Pippins read Bender's eyes and stepped in front of the pass, Bender's only interception of the day.

-- With the way Bender's stepped up, it appears more and more like the Cougars have a true quarterback competition this spring. Mike Leach said after the scrimmage that he won't name a starting quarterback until the fall. I still think Luke Falk has pole position based on the number of reps each quarterback receivers with the starting unit in practice, and Leach said today that overall Falk has outplayed Bender slightly up until this point. But Bender is forcing the issue with the skills he's shown and the sheer volume of good plays he's accumulating, so it looks like that competition won't be fully decided for some time.

-- That being said, it's important to note when looking at Bender's gaudy statistics that Falk is facing a tougher defense most of the time. By my count, Falk faced the starters on three of his four drives and the second team just once. Conversely, Bender faces the twos three times and had just one series against the starters – the one where he got picked off.

While it's true that Falk is also playing with the first team offense more often, my read is that the backups on defense are further behind their starting counterparts than on offense, where the second unit is still going to have playmakers like Kyrin Priester and D.J Thompson – they caught two and three touchdowns, respectively – and one of the three running backs that are essentially interchangeable.

But the really good athletes on defense are starting – Pippins picked off each quarterback once, and cornerback Charleston White has an extra gear that the backups don't have. The defensive second unit does have some playmakers along the line but also has some guys that just aren't able to consistently cover some of those receivers, meaning Bender has a lot more wide open guys to throw it to.

-- It was a mixed bag for the offensive line. On the one hand, they only gave up three sacks in 91 drop-backs – pretty good.  On the other hand, they jumped offside at least four or five times.

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